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As all the information begins to settle on me, I become more and more confused. Even knowing she was stealing, I hadn’t really considered how she was stealing. With the Craigslist scam, I assumed she would only come to people’s houses and report back to Tristan if it was worth breaking into. But now it looks like she took money from people herself. It sounds like something a stranger might do, not my happy-go-lucky kid sister Anna. I’d never once imagined her being able to use people like that. Or being involved with someone like Liam, who is his own type of addict, someone she would never have a future with. He was never letting go of his open relationship doctrine, it was obvious. Not to mention Tristan and his blue hair and his train-hopping. At least Liam had a house.

More importantly, if she really is dating either guy, and they are both here, then where is Anna?

“You need to take your petty grievances with you and leave,” Tristan tells Liam. But Liam has no intention of fleeing. While we are standing there staring at each other, out of the corner of my eye, I see Liam shift, the glean of the knife reflected by the moon; then, even faster, Tristan moves past him, until the two of them are suddenly wrestling on the ground. A second later, Tristan is sitting on top of Liam and has taken the knife out of his hand.

“Not cool, bro,” Tristan says, standing up, sliding the knife into a pocket of his pants. He gazes up at me with a look I can only describe as tiredness. Tired is the last thing I am feeling. My heart is beating so fast and so loud it’s like a drum. This would never happen in Israel, I think, yet again. When you fall, there are too many people there to catch you. Here, when you fall, there are only people to pull you farther down; if there’s anyone at all. The nuclear family ideal has consequences.

I kneel down on the grass beside Liam, and take my bag off my shoulders. “Here,” I say, reaching into my bag. “You said he owes you 800 dollars? I’ll pay you back, okay? I have some money from my dad, and I can get more. It’s not a problem.”

Tristan looks at me, then at Liam, then at me again.

My heart is racing now. What if he decides to wrestle me to the ground too? But Tristan merely stands, flicking the dirt from his jeans onto the ground and wiping his brow of sweat.

“Tell Anna, if you find her…” he licks his lips, and stares at the ground. For a moment, I see the real version of him. The one underneath all the layers of bravado and indifference. “Tell her I’m sorry. And… tell her the money went where it was supposed to go, and she shouldn’t worry.”

“What money?” I ask. Did he mean the money they made stealing? The money I thought was used to get the hell out of dodge, possibly to Ukraine? I stand up, and extend a hand for Liam.

“She’ll know,” Tristan says.

I help Liam up, and buy the time I turn around again, Tristan is already out of sight. The fire is nothing but smoke. I am left there with nothing but the moon and a Liam trying to catch his breath. Well. Not only did I fail at finding my sister, Liam got beat up in the process. It’s really a good thing I’m not in law enforcement. I offer my old friend a pat on the back, even though part of me thinks he deserves it, pulling a knife on someone like he is in an action movie, when he is quite certainly high and has never taken one self-defense class.

“Did you really think that would work?” I ask him.

“I forgot the fucking guy was into Judo or Jiu Jitsu or whatever,” he says, standing up, rubbing his chest. “Fuck. He kneed me right in the chest.”

The whole thing probably took five minutes, but I know I’ll be unraveling it for weeks to come. I’ve definitely failed at retrieving Anna, but after talking to Tristan, a small part of me does understand why she would go, and why she might not want anyone to know where.

If we knew, we might stop her. Now I’m not so sure I want to stop her.

I remember how it feels to leave with nothing but a backpack strapped to your shoulders. We aren’t the type to sit in an office and click away on a keyboard for eight hours a day, like our parents, like that entire generation of Russian Jews who’d come here for a better life, always striving and striving and never being able to say this is enough. In Israel, nineteen-year-olds don’t have the luxury to disappear, because everyone has to join the army. In Ukraine, they are generally too hungry to do anything but find jobs. But Anna and I are lucky. In America, you can do pretty much anything. Wrong or right, we are able to choose our own paths, to make them up from scratch.

I hear the flick of a lighter behind me; Liam has a cigarette in his mouth, his eyes unmistakably dark. I stare at him, taken aback by his sadness. “You really liked her, didn’t you?” I ask. I finally realize it’s not his girlfriend Melanie he’s been mooning over since I saw him yesterday. It’s Anna. No wonder he looked so surprised when I mentioned her name.

Not that he will admit it. Instead he frowns at me and starts walking back towards where he parked. “I like everyone, Masha,” he says.

JANUARY 2008

ANNA

________________

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Turns out it doesn’t take all that much for me to consider stealing, once I run out of money and get used to the idea. It probably helped that I’d stolen before; if I thought I could get away with it, I’d walk right past a gas station register with a water bottle I’d already opened, or peanuts or a magazine from a booth at the airport. No one is ever paying attention at an airport. Because I am always broke, I like free stuff. But those were rare instances, small inexpensive things, small thrills. What Tristan does is different and takes more getting used to. Luckily for him, I get used to things quickly.

The first party he takes me to is in Shorewood, a cozy suburb just north of Milwaukee’s east side. It’s only a ten-minute bike ride from Riverwest, but it’s practically another state. Every house we pass is a different level of ostentatious, and there’s so much space between the houses you could fit another two or three buildings if you want to. I choose to marvel over this later, as it’s barely twenty degrees and we are chilled to the bone. Parking the bikes near the garage behind some bushes, we rush inside to warm ourselves with barely a glance at the exterior. Only once we’re inside do I notice how gigantic it is. It’s a three-level brick mansion with nearly a dozen windows, a portico, and a view of the lake. No one I know would live in a house like this, and I am dumbfounded how there’s a party with so many people my age until I notice the family photos hanging in the foyer. One of them shows a blonde, athletic-looking guy wearing a UWM shirt, flanked on both sides by a very well-dressed middle-aged couple. A minute or two later, I hear someone shout: “Dude, your parents should go to Greece more often!” Then I understand.

Now that I can feel my toes again, I grab Tristan’s hand and pull him into the living room, where I’m a little shell shocked by the vast amount of people and alcohol and bongs I’ve found myself facing. I don’t move when the door opens behind us, letting in a group of giggling girls drenched in various perfumes. Tristan pulls me to the side so that they can pass us.

“Did I mention I hate parties?” I ask Tristan, my eyes wide with horror.

“Only a hundred times,” Tristan laughs, giving my hand a squeeze. It calms me down, but only for a second. The place is full of people I might have gone to high school with—khaki pants with actual pockets in the sides, clean-shaven faces and hair with blonde highlights—and we stand out like sore thumbs. I try to swallow the dread that has been growing in my belly all day and meander through the crowd to get to the kitchen. A place like this has to have vast amounts of alcohol in the fridge. I’ll take any kind at this point, but my fingers are crossed for vodka or rum. Instead, I only find beer. In the far back, on the bottom shelf, behind the beer, Tristan grabs me a full bottle of wine with a twist-off cap. I open it and fill a plastic cup to the brim. Then I drink it all, and refill it again.